The Mango Season (16 page)

“They don’t mean it that way,” I said lamely.

“What would you know?” Sowmya flashed at me. “You have Mr. Mercedes wanting to marry you and you have an American boyfriend who wants to marry you. You have all the choices and . . .” She stopped speaking as she saw the shock on my face and then on Lata’s.

“American boyfriend?” Lata said, catching the most important part.

“I was just making a point,” Sowmya tried to backtrack but it was already too late.

“Yes,” I said boldly. No point in lying anymore, I realized. It was time. I should have done this as soon as I got to India. I shouldn’t have waited. “But please don’t tell anyone anything,” I pleaded. “I want to be the one to tell them.”

Lata nodded and then threw her hands up in the air. “You girls complicate your lives,” she said in exasperation. “When I was getting married it was simple. The first groom who said yes, it was yes. With you—”

“It is not like I have been saying no, Lata,” Sowmya pointed out.

“I know,” Lata said, and sighed. “Our choices are so pathetic. Look at me, pregnant for the third time so that your father can have a grandson, so that Jayant can feel that he is for once closer to his father than Anand, so that when the old man dies he will leave something more to us than he plans to. Disgusting lives we women have to live.”

“We make our own choices,” I said.

“No,” Sowmya said as she stood up. “No, we don’t. If I had a choice, I would have gotten a job, gotten outside the house. Who knows, met someone. But
Nanna
wouldn’t have it.”

“
You
have choices,” Lata said, looking at me. “And you are going to blow it. An American boyfriend?”

“I didn’t plan it,” I told her what I had told Sowmya. “It just happened.”

“Have you slept with him?” Lata asked.

“None of your business,” I said without thinking. “That’s very personal.”

“There is no
personal
for women,” Sowmya piped in. “My father knows when I menstruate because I have to sit out, they know who talks to me and who doesn’t, they know what movie I see and with whom, they know exactly, down to the
paisa
what I spend on anything. Personal! My foot!”

I had never seen Sowmya so riled up, but then I had never seen her as a real woman with feelings and emotions, always as Sowmya, everyone’s punching bag. The one you could dump on, the one who put up with everything. I think all of us had forgotten that beneath the thick glasses lay the perceptive eyes of a woman. Not some bride-to-be but a grown woman who was as angry at the world as I was but had more of a right to be so.

I found Indian rituals appalling but I didn’t have to live them; Sowmya and Lata did. My life was better and my choices infinitely more appealing than theirs. My parents had given me this and I owed them the truth about my personal life. They needed to know and soon that Nick existed and because he did exist, I could not marry Adarsh or any other good-looking Indian “boy.”

“Where did Natarajan go?”
Ammamma
asked. Both
Thatha
and
Ammamma
refused to call Nate anything but Natarajan. Nate they said was too anglicized and in any case why would you shorten a nice God’s name like Natarajan?

“He had some studying to do, so he went home,”
Nanna
made the excuse. “He wants to catch up with next semester’s syllabus.”

“What a hardworking boy,”
Ammamma
said, buying into the cock-and-bull story. “See, Priya, that is the kind of boy girls want to marry. And Adarsh is like that. His mother told me that he used to study until four in the morning every day to pass the BITS Pilani entrance exam. Hardworking boys make good husbands.”

First, BITS Pilani, unlike all other engineering colleges in India, did not have an entrance exam; admission was granted based on 12th class exam results. Second, I couldn’t figure out the connection between hard work and good husband; I knew several hardworking guys at work who I was positive would make awful husbands.

“Pass the
sambhar
, Priya Ma,”
Nanna
said, looking at me curiously. “So, what did you think of Adarsh?”

“What do you mean, what did she think?” Ma demanded. “She—”

“Radha, I want to know what she thought,”
Nanna
interrupted Ma. It was a ploy; he knew I couldn’t speak my mind here, in front of all these people.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I spent all of ten minutes with him. It’s hard for me to say what he’s like.”

Ma’s face twisted and she glared at me.

“No, seriously,” I said, “you expect me to marry this man and I don’t even get a chance to talk to him before
Nanna
shows up asking if he wants
chai
.”

“How much time would you need?”
Thatha
asked. “A whole day? A year? Priya, marriage is what all that time is for.”

“Not in my world,” I said easily. “I don’t want to risk marrying the wrong man because tradition expected me to not know him before marriage. I can’t take that chance.”

“We all took that chance and we have done just fine,”
Ammamma
said.

I shook my head. “Please, I don’t want to discuss this.”

“Why?” Ma asked.

I was about to tell her exactly why when in pure movie fashion, the phone rang. Sowmya got up and went into the hall to answer it. It was for my father.

Nanna
came back, a 1,000-watt smile on his face. “They said yes,” he said, beaming at me, and I felt as if a basketful of raw mangoes fell on top of my head.

You Can’t Make Mango Pickle with Tomatoes

Everyone was very excited for the remainder of the dinner, making wedding plans and discussing how everything would have to be done fast-fast. Sowmya, Lata, and I sat somberly looking at each other. I had never expected it, but Lata and I were suddenly on the same side, while
Nanna
had joined the evil one on the dark side.

“They want to take the
tamboolalu
in the next two days and we can set the marriage date for . . .”
Nanna
said, looking at me, gauging my reaction.

“Ah, Priya can get more holiday,” Ma said, overjoyed that finally all her efforts were coming to fruition. “What, Priya, your American boss won’t give extra holiday for your own wedding?”

“Now all we need is for Vinay to say yes to Sowmya,”
Ammamma
said, the loose skin around her jaw jumping around like Jell-O. “A double wedding . . . ah . . . a double wedding.”

Ma leaned over to me and whispered, “They want a double wedding so that they can reduce cost, but we won’t have any of it, okay. Big wedding for my daughter,” she said and then smiled. She kissed me on the forehead, pleased, I think, more with herself than with me. “Big wedding,” she said, flushed, the happiness vibrating through her nauseating me with its consequences.

The blood roared in my ears; I could hear what everyone was saying but I couldn’t quite comprehend anything. The boy said yes? Why on earth would he do that? Didn’t I try my best to put him off?

“At that new reception hall,” Jayant was saying, “where that actress . . . What’s her name, Lata?”

“We have to shop for saris,”
Ammamma
was saying. “Can’t go to Madras, not enough time . . . Chandana Brothers will have to do”

“I have all the jewelry ready,” Ma was saying. “Everything is ready . . . ”

“Priya Ma,”
Nanna’s
voice reached my ear and something snapped inside me. This man loved me and he was entitled to the truth.

“I can’t marry Adarsh,” I said as the last hands were being washed in silver and steel plates. “Or anyone else you want me to marry,” I spoke over Ma’s tirade of objections and curses. “I came to India at this time to tell you all that I’m in love with an American and I plan to marry him. We’re engaged.” I showed them the winking diamond on my finger, which I put back on
after
the
pelli-chupulu
.

Silence fell in the room and then suddenly conversation rose like the small buzz of a mosquito raging into a zillion buzzing mosquitoes.

Nanna
stood up unsteadily. “You hurt me, Priya Ma,” he said and walked out of the dining room, the hall, and, finally,
Thatha’s
house with the creak of
Thatha’s
noisy gate and the small roar of his Fiat.

And with those simple words,
Nanna
broke my heart as well. The tears I had been holding back raced down my cheeks. Nate had been right; telling
Nanna
was very hard. It was harder to see
Thatha
sit rigidly, his expression unfathomable. I had opened all the doors to hell for my father and grandfather. That was the way they probably looked at what I am sure they saw as the ultimate defection.

“American?” Ma was dumbfounded. “American?” she repeated. She had already said that a few times, as if questioning it several times would change it.

I started to help Sowmya clear up the dining table while
Ammamma
just kept making sounds and Jayant sat quietly sipping water from a steel glass.

I knew that this was the lull before the storm. This was the quiet after which nothing would be the same again. It had been done and now I was scared that they would stop loving me. They would tell me to go away, like family did in movies, and never set foot in their house again.

I stood at the doorway between the kitchen and the dining area, while Sowmya and Lata rinsed the dishes, whispering to each other.

“Just because you are wearing some ring, doesn’t mean you are engaged,” Ma said, her voice strained and thin. “This boy . . . Adarsh is perfect. You will marry him before you leave and that is that. You will forget this American and—”

“It isn’t that simple, Ma,” I spoke over her words. In the kitchen, the sounds of water and steel clashing stopped and when I didn’t say anything else the sounds resumed.

There was silence while Lata and Sowmya piled rinsed steel plates and glasses and ladles into the plastic tub for Parvati to wash the next morning.

I helped Sowmya carry the plastic tub outside into the back yard.

“Now what?” I asked unsteadily.

Sowmya just smiled. “Now we will have a family
Mahabharatam
.”

I leaned against the cement base of the
tulasi
plant, not too keen on going back inside. The tension was flowing out of the house in small waves slowly coming together to form a tornado. I plucked a
tulasi
leaf and put it inside my mouth to stop tasting the rising bile of fear.

“They’re going to kick me out or they’re going to tie me up and marry me to this Adarsh fellow,” I said. “What if they don’t want to ever see me again?” I asked, my eyes filling yet again. “Will they just let me go?”

Sowmya took her hand in mine. “No,” she said. “No one will let you go. They will be angry with you for a while but they will come around.”

Lata came outside and asked if everything was okay.

“She is scared,” Sowmya said sympathetically.

“So she should be,” Lata said. “Once your mother gets over the shock, she is going to beat you within an inch of your life.”

I sighed.

“And your
Thatha
is . . . Well, he is going to watch,” Lata continued with a grin. “At least it is done. Now you can let what has to happen, happen.”

“Let’s go inside,” Sowmya suggested. “Otherwise they’ll think that you ran away.”

Running away sounded like a real good idea, right about now.

Everyone was sitting in the living room when we came back in. There was still no sign of
Nanna
. He never just left without telling anyone where he was going, no matter how upset he was or how big the fight he’d had with Ma. This was unusual but then it wasn’t every day his favorite daughter not only broke his dreams but walked all over them with pointed shoes as well. Even though this was my life and I knew in my head that I had to live it the way I wanted to, I couldn’t shrug the guilt away. It was there, rock solid, without give. And there was another form of guilt, the guilt for feeling guilty in the first place. Nick was part of my life, the man who had accepted all my flaws and I was feeling guilty about loving him, living with him. I was wishing, in a small corner of my mind, that he didn’t exist in my life so that I could marry Adarsh or some other sap like him and not have this conflict with my parents.

“So we’ll tell the Sarmas that you are saying yes, right?” Ma was agitated and her face was flushed, her tone flustered. She was scared, I realized, afraid that I had actually meant what I said about an American boyfriend. My heart went out to her. Like Sowmya, she was trying her best to make Nick go away.

“No, Ma, we can’t,” I said, and sat down beside her.

She slapped me across the face and tears streaked down her cheeks. “How could you, Priya? We taught you well . . . we raised you right and . . . How could you, Priya?”

I buried my face in my hands. This was just as bad as I had thought it would be. I stemmed my tears by pressing my eyes with my hands.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Ma, facing her with clear eyes. “I didn’t plan to fall in love with Nick, it just happened. And I can’t
just
marry someone else. I don’t want to marry anyone but Nick.”

“Then you should have said something earlier,” Jayant said, looking just as agitated now as Ma. “What will we tell the Sarmas? You have put us all in an embarrassing situation.”

I wanted to remind them all that they had forced the
pelli-chupulu
on me, that I was not to blame for that, but I couldn’t because a part of me blamed myself. I knew that if I had told them about Nick earlier, they would’ve put a stop to it. Even if Ma and
Thatha
wouldn’t, I knew my father definitely would have.

“You have shamed us,”
Ammamma
added her two cents. “An American? At least Anand married an Indian . . . but you have just ruined our good name. It is not too late, Priya. Forget this American, Nicku-Bicku, and marry that Sarma boy. Good boys like him don’t come around all the time.”

I waited for
Thatha
to say something but he was not saying a word. He was sitting as rigidly as he had before, looking into space. I wished he would say something, anything. The two people who I had been most afraid of hurting were hurt and they were the two who were saying the least; in fact, they had said nothing.

“When are you planning to marry this Nicku person?” Ma asked.

“Sometime this year,” I said. “I know you don’t approve—”

“Approve?” Ma charged at me. “You don’t care if we approve. You don’t care if our names are dragged through the mud. You are a selfish girl, Priya, only caring about yourself. We should never have let you go to America without marriage. Your father and I were too soft and you have taken advantage of us.”

It was not like that hadn’t crossed my mind and because it had, guilt, which was already lying heavily on me, increased in weight.

Several of my classmates from engineering school in India had married “boys” in the United States, while I and a few others had not. Our parents had not insisted that marriage be a criterion for leaving their home. They could have made it an issue but they hadn’t. They had trusted me to take care of myself, to not fall in love with some foreigner, and I had betrayed their trust. That was what Ma had said when she had talked about Anand marrying Neelima, “What can we do when someone takes your trust and throws it away?” And I had done exactly that.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I cried out. “Ma, these things happen. I’m sorry that you don’t approve, that you feel I’ve betrayed you, but this is my life and I have to live my life, you can’t live it for me. I have to be happy and I can’t let you be happy for me. And for me to be happy, I need to marry Nick. It’s that simple.”

“Nothing is that simple,”
Thatha
finally spoke. “You think your marriage to a foreigner is going to be all roses?”

I shook my head. “All relationships have problems. That’s a fact of life.”

“But this relationship will have more problems than most,”
Thatha
said assuredly. “You obviously will not have any support from your family. I don’t know about his family but I am sure they are not completely happy about this. How can they be?”

“But they are,
Thatha
,” I said. “They are. Nick’s family loves me. They accept me and don’t notice that I’m Indian.”

“Then they are being dishonest,”
Thatha
said confidently. He couldn’t fathom that a world existed where people didn’t notice skin color and differentiate on its basis.

“They will never accept you completely,”
Thatha
declared. “And what will you be left with then? A marriage to a man who your family, your world, doesn’t accept and his family accepts you, but reluctantly. I promise you that if you get married to this American, your marriage will end in divorce.”

I was shocked at his cruelty. It was cruel to tell me that my impending marriage had no chance of survival. It was cruel to tell me that he would abandon me if I married Nick. It was cruel and unkind and he hit all the marks he wanted to strike with his words.

“Then it will be a risk I must take,” I said bravely and got up. “Do you want me to leave your house now?”

“Priya!” Ma exclaimed.

Thatha
shook his head. “No. You are still my granddaughter.”

I nodded.

“It will never work, Priya. You cannot make mango pickle with tomatoes,” he warned. “You cannot mesh two cultures without making a mess of it. I say this because I love you. Forget about this American. They are not our people. They will never understand us. Marry Adarsh. He is a good boy and it will make your family happy.”

I shook my head.

“No, no . . .”
Thatha
said with a tight smile. “Don’t make any rash decisions. Take your time to think about it. We don’t have to say anything to Sarma-
garu
until tomorrow afternoon.”

I didn’t bother to tell him that I was not going to change my mind. Like my father had just a while ago, I walked out of
Thatha’s
house into the warm night. No one called out after me to warn me how dangerous it was to be out at night, but it was just nine o’clock and the sky was still not completely black; hints of the sun still lurked in crimson streaks around sparse sickly clouds.

I went to the telephone booth from where I had called Nick just a few hours ago and dialed my parents’ home number. Nate picked up the phone on the fourth ring.

I was sobbing and couldn’t get any words out.

Nate was in front of the telephone booth on his motorbike within twenty minutes of my hysterical phone call. It was a Yamaha, which my father and paternal grandfather had given him for his eighteenth birthday a year ago against Ma’s vehement objection. She was convinced that Nate would die in an accident on his Yamaha and hated it with a passion. I had shipped a helmet for him, which had annoyed Ma because she thought I was encouraging him but had pleased her as well, because she knew a helmet would keep her son safe.

“I know this great place where they serve very good ice cream,” Nate said when I sat behind him on the bike.

“Nate, drive carefully or we’ll die,” I all but shrieked when Nate started driving on the bumpy roads of Hyderabad. Maybe Ma had a point!

The ice cream parlor was a cozy copy of a ’50s Hollywood movie. There was a jukebox, a red jalopy in a corner, and Enrique Iglesias was telling some woman she couldn’t escape his love at the top of his weepy lungs.